Last week, the PBS show “Frontline” aired “Solitary Nation,” a graphic portrayal of solitary confinement in prisons, jails and detention centers throughout the United States.

We saw in nightmarish detail the mental and physical deterioration experienced by prisoners in isolation. The episode left no shred of doubt in my mind that the use of long-term solitary confinement rises to the level of cruel and unusual punishment, treatment not fit for any living being.

According to the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, solitary confinement beyond 15 days should be prohibited because of its devastating psychological toll. The Supreme Court ruled in 1890 that solitary confinement constituted torture. And yet today, the practice of locking prisoners in a cell, alone or with one other person, for 23 hours a day, for months, years, even decades, persists in every state.

Perhaps even more chilling than witnessing on our television screens the pools of blood spilled as a result of cycles of self-harm is the knowledge that this is happening every day in our own towns and cities.

As a United Methodist pastor who has spent the past two years campaigning for alternatives to isolated confinement in New Jersey with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, permit me to provide a brief snapshot of our own backyard.

Our state was one of the first to test solitary confinement as a primary tool of correctional control in the modern era. Bonnie Kerness, coordinator of the AFSC Prison Watch Project, recounts the adoption in 1975 of “management control units” in New Jersey State Prison, then Trenton State Prison, as a response to politically dissident groups in the wake of the civil rights movement.

Using sensory deprivation, long-term isolation, seizure of property and denial of outside human contact, New Jersey law enforcement worked with state administrators to dismantle groups deemed “radical” by incapacitating their leaders. Since the 1970s, decades of “tough on crime” rhetoric have led to an unsustainable ballooning of our prison and jail populations and a shift toward a punitive model that focuses on control and disposability of human persons.

The “Frontline” report failed to address the draconian, disproportionate impact of our correctional policies on communities of color, evidenced in New Jersey and throughout the country. New Jersey’s reliance on incarceration and isolation has a direct, detrimental impact on our poor communities of color. As of 2007, New Jersey boasted the third-highest black-to-white incarceration rate disparity in the United States. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the cities and counties from which most state prisoners hail are also those with the highest poverty rates, school closings, policing and public health issues.

A 2006 study by the Vera Institute of Justice reported that more than 80,000 prisoners are in isolation at any time, but this number did not include jails or detention centers. These figures reflect the now-common practice of funneling public monies (and private contracts) into the construction of “supermax” facilities — prisons made up exclusively of solitary confinement units. Once a rarity on the U.S. correctional landscape, these super-maximum prisons are in at least 44 states.

While “Frontline” highlights the new perspective on solitary confinement in Maine that followed a statewide campaign of community and religious leaders, legislative efforts are also underway in California, New Mexico, Colorado, New York and Massachusetts. Texas passed a study bill last year, backed by the largest correctional officers union in the state.

As national scrutiny increases thanks to prisoner hunger strikes, public hearings and communities of faith speaking out about the immorality of this practice, New Jersey legislators must act to end the torture of long-term solitary confinement here in our backyard. As “Frontline” made clear, our safety and humanity depend on it.

The Rev. Jack Johnson is a United Methodist pastor who lives in Columbus, N.J.